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One of the best ways to learn about a destination is to read the quirky
stories, hotel reviews and the insider tips about where to play, stay,
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Pagination

In this year's Hot List — Conde Nast Traveler editors picks of the year’s top hotel openings — the U.S. lays claim to 26 hot properties, including some surprises in smaller cities. Palm Springs is proud to be recognized by three amazing properties, Holiday House Palm Springs, Kimpton Rowan Palm Springs, and The Rossi.

The modern woman's getaway guide to Palm Springs - After a century of taking the world by storm, we modern women have earned some downtime. But when bubble baths fizzle out too soon and happy-hour tiaras start to lose their sparkle, it's time to visit California's oasis of inspiration: Palm Springs.

The 7 most beautiful hotel pools in Palm Springs. -

With Coachella just a few days away, the modernist hotels of Palm Springs are the place to be. And the boutique resorts scattered through the desert boast some of the most beautiful pools in the world.

Tania Fares's Insider Guide To Palm Springs

Vogue contributing editor Tania Fares is a multi-tasking maven: an art patron, philanthropist and British fashion champion, based between London, LA, Paris and Beirut, she's never not on the road. Here, she rounds up her favourite things to do when in Palm Springs.

Best of Palm Springs: 6 New Places to Eat, Drink and Stay By Sally Kilbridge

Palm Springs Visit Palm Springs.

Scores of outdoor bistros, modernist gems on every corner (the only Chase bank you’ll ever feel compelled to Instagram), and a climate that encourages flip-flops in February make Palm Springs a classic California getaway. And with JetBlue’s nonstop flights from New York, it’s finally being discovered by East Coasters. The big news in the desert is the seven-block swathe of downtown that’s being reimagined as one of the sharpest, most pedestrian-friendly urban spaces in the country. The halo effect extends to the entire city, where even older businesses have an upbeat spring in their step as Modernism Week draws the crowds. Here are six of Palm Springs’ newest—or renewed—chic spots to dine and stay.

Kimpton The Rowan

Kimpton The Rowan Laure Joliet

Lounging on the rooftop pool deck while a well-toned clientele chill to a bossa nova beat, it’s hard to imagine the outcry that accompanied the construction of Palm Springs’ tallest building. Local protectionists protested the change in the city’s low-slung roofline, but the hotel opened nonetheless in late 2017, and the seven-story Rowan delivers plenty of in-room luxury (yoga mats, 360° glass showers, and minibars stocked with small batch beef jerky) along with floor-to-ceiling views of the San Jacinto Mountains and palm-lined boulevards. It seems as though every guest shows up for complimentary happy hour in the Living Room, to peruse a huge library of design books over Chablis and beer.

4 Saints

4 Saints. Laure Joliet

Chef Stephen Wambach likes to keep things local: You can regularly find him foraging for juniper berries in the San Jacinto hills. He also likes things hard-to-get: The John Dory they serve on the menu is imported all the way from New Zealand. And it’s a safe bet that he likes things buttery: His Parker House rolls are worth every cent of the $10 surcharge. Helming the city’s current in spot, on The Rowan’s top floor, Wambach teases desert palates with the exotic splash of a sea urchin appetizer while also catering to locals with crowd-pleasers like rib eye with huckleberry bordelaise. The Palm Springs movers and shakers who flock here make dinner reservations a must, but you can always drop by the bar for a basket of that house-made bread and a cocktail under the stars.

Ingleside Inn

Ingleside Inn. Steve Kepple

In the 1930s, this Spanish Colonial compound was one of Hollywood’s favorite hideaways, welcoming everyone from Elizabeth Taylor to Salvador Dali. Norman Vincent Peale favored the spot, too. And thanks to a head-to-toe makeover, it’s enjoying a new wave of glamour. The handsome renovation didn’t mess with the hotel’s charms. The 30 guest rooms retain their original keys (no plastic cards here), and the luxe additions (vintage tiles, leather benches, oriental rugs) would be at home in the library of an uncle with great wealth and taste. For a historic icon, there’s a surprisingly funky side: The general manager leads complimentary yoga classes, the room service martinis are mixed at your door, and nobody raises an eyebrow when a guest starts his day strumming Neil Young tunes by the pool.

Melvyn’s

Melvyn’s. Steve Kepple

A dinner guest once asked a captain at Melvyn’s how he felt about wearing a tuxedo to work each night. He replied, “I’d feel naked otherwise.” Adjacent to the Ingleside Inn, Melvyn’s has received its own gentle refresh: walls opened up, colors were brightened and the menu was revisited. (Thanks to chef Jennifer Town, it’s now possible to get a vegan meal.) But nobody wants things to change too much: At any Sunday afternoon jam session by the piano bar there are nearly as many 30-somethings on the dance floor as Palm Springs retirees.

La Serena Villas

La Serena Villas. La Serena Villas

If you’ve ever wanted to tiptoe from claw-foot tub to al fresco fire-pit without stopping to throw on a robe, this boutique hotel is your kind of place. The original 1933 bungalows have been reconfigured with high-walled outdoor bathing patios where you can soak with a glass of bubbly while watching the moon rise over the mountains. Inside, the 18 rooms and suites are studies in Morocco-meets-Mexico cool, with the added bonus of wine fridges. (You can walk through the lobby toting a Trader Joe’s wine caddy with pride.) Also on-site: a pocket-size spa and Azucar restaurant, whose new chef, Joanne Garcia Colson, should be shaking things up tout suite.

Holiday House

Holiday House Bob Payne

Perhaps it’s the blue-and-white color scheme, or the muffled splashes from the pool or the guests padding up to the bar in bikinis, but there’s something about this 28-room hotel, originally opened in 1951, that seems as serene and faraway as a small Greek island. Rooms come in three categories—“good,” “better,” and “best”—all crisp and comfortable, with substance (good reading lights) as well as style (art you’ll wish you could take home). Lunch at the hotel’s tiny Pantry restaurant stars buckets of veggies, lobster rolls and beautiful salads; Fried Chicken Friday dinners are communal evenings you should reserve in advance.

The addition is expected to cut the annual electric load in half by the first year, and increase in subsequent years. Due to continued utility rate increases by Southern California Edison, the cost of electricity for Palm Springs is expected to double over the next 20 years. The city had been looking for a more affordable and sustainable alternative that didn’t involve them raising their rates. This green solution will save Palm Springs $2 million, with the added benefit of producing clean energy.

SolarCity is planning to fund the cost of the entire project, from installation to maintenance, with the city paying a reduced fixed rate for the electricity produced to SolarCity for the life of the contract. The addition of solar panels is part of a package of measures the center is taking in its strive for sustainability.

In May 1947, Frank Sinatra showed up at Emerson Stewart Williams' office in Palm Springs, California, and asked for a Georgian-style vacation home. As the late architect recounted to Vanity Fair more than 50 years later, the singer's only other stipulation was that it was finished by Christmas.

The deadline was feasible. But when it came to the design, Williams had other ideas, according to Tim Street-Porter, the photographer behind a new book on the city, "Palm Springs: A Modernist Paradise."

"(Sinatra) wanted it to be in a period style, but the architect talked him into having a modernist house," Street-Porter said in a phone interview. "When he got it, he entertained in it. And because Sinatra was who he was, it got other entertainment industry people, like Diana Shaw, to get modernist houses there too."

Complete with a swimming pool, glass walls and a shady veranda for cocktail parties, Sinatra's home was typical of the mid-century modernism that swept Palm Springs after World War II. The city soon became a holiday playground for the stars -- from Zsa Zsa Gabor to Bing Crosby -- leaving it with one of the highest concentrations of modernist buildings anywhere in the world (Street-Porter puts the overall figure at over 5,000 houses).

While the photographer's new book omits Sinatra's home in favor of lesser-known residences, he uses the story to illustrate an important point -- that the Palm Springs modernist boom wasn't just about the whims of Hollywood. It was about the vision of the city's pioneering architects.

Luxury Guide to Palm Springs: It’s not exactly groundbreaking to talk about Palm Springs as an ultimate California getaway. The desert town has long been a favorite hot spot for A-list Angelenos—like Hollywood stars Elizabeth Taylor and Bob Hope, who first made it glamorous when they were bound by their studios to be within 200 miles of L.A. at all times. Then it quickly became the place to see and be seen in the swinging ’50s and ’60s, drawing visitors from around the globe.

Today, however, the modernist oasis is in the midst of a renaissance. Sleek new hotels are cropping up throughout the region, and some of the oldest Hollywood hideouts are being restored to their former glory. World-renowned exhibitions like biennial Desert X (a 2017 Best of the Best winner for its innovative art exhibitions) and Palm Springs Modernism week, along with the ever-popular Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, are drawing in the word’s jet set once again, giving visitors far more to do than lounge by the pool with a martini. (Though there’s certainly no shame in spending a weekend doing just that.)

Here are our top picks for where to stay, what to eat, and what to see for an ultra-glamorous long weekend in the desert’s modern oasis.